


i'd climb every mountain

by elsanoelle



Series: Let the music heal your soul [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bottom Steve Rogers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Fluff and Smut, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Pining, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Top Tony Stark, angst with hopeful ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 17:24:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14835975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsanoelle/pseuds/elsanoelle
Summary: Steve closes his eyes and thought of the night before they left for Sokovia.The night they finally crossed the Rubicon.





	i'd climb every mountain

_“_ If you stare at that phone any longer, you’re going to burn a hole through it,” Sam says, his voice piercing through the silence of the balcony.

Steve breaks his gaze from the flip phone, tiny in his large super soldier hands. He was doing it again – the brooding. At first, he would vehemently deny that he was doing it, nowadays Steve resigned to just shrugging off passing comments. He was tired of denying how he felt about the entire situation, tired of saying he was okay when in fact he was crumbling on the inside.

Above all, he was so, so tired of not being able to admit that he painfully missed a certain brunette.

Steve was hunched on a seat in full tactical gear, sitting under the full moon, intending to observe the streets. He and Sam were waiting to rendezvous with Natasha in a small safe house in a town just off the main road heading to Beirut.

“Sorry,” Steve says, passing the phone from one gloved hand to another. He instinctively apologizes whenever he was caught pining away, though conscious of the fact that nobody has ever made a fuss over it.

“Phones work both ways, Steve.”

Sam’s words made Steve clasp the device with both his hands and rests his head against them, elbows on his knees.

He prays silently.

Sometimes he wishes he wasn’t obsessed with the person on the other side of the call button. That he could find peace by destroying the phone and never having to look at it ever again.

But he is.

And he can’t.

Steve could never break the phone. He held the clamshell like a lifeline. It was his only material connection to Tony.

That is, if Tony hadn’t smashed the identical one he’d given him or burned it with the letter Steve had spent days agonizing over. It had been 2 weeks since he received an acknowledgement that the parcel had been delivered safely at the compound, accepted personally by Stark.

And yet the device he held in his hand, the obsolete piece of technology much like his being, kept close to his person at all times, remained silent. The countless moments he thought the phone had been switched off, under-charged, _damaged god forbid_ , bemused the few people around him that he had left.

If the situation they were in was not as morose, it would have come across as comical.

Who was he kidding though? After what happened at the bunker, after he chose to use the words “..if you need me” instead of _“..if you want me_ ”, Tony could have easily interpreted his intention of merely offering battle support, and nothing else. Steve’s choice of words in the Letter was carefully dictated given the circumstances of their final encounter - _divorce_ , as Clint would term it - even though the countless drafts and unsent copies that laid waste on the floor of their base camps told a different story.

 _Think of the trees, Rogers,_ Natasha once deadpanned.

It was only after her comment that he realized he was continously tearing off a new sheet of writing paper with only the words ~~Dear Tony~~  written with nothing else. He wasn't above admitting that he may likely be emotionally crippled; he couldn’t even bring himself to pen his thoughts in a personal letter apologizing for his wrongdoings to a man who owned his heart, and whose heart he had broken.

He ended up starting the Letter with just _Tony_.

Communication, or the lack of, had always been the pitfall of their relationship. They talked to each other a lot, in fact they spent a healthy amount of time dancing around one other to the frustration of everyone. Most of their conversations unfortunately were of them trading barbs and disagreeing, yelling on top of their lungs until one of them storms away or breaks something (RIP log of wood). On better days, Steve and Tony would steal glances across the room and seemed to read the other person’s mind in a disgustingly cute way.

They’d also openly complement each other and had no qualms in being physically affectionate, under the pretense that it was all bromance. The shoulder bumps, the pat on the back, the private lunch dates, the lingering touches during a seemingly innocent pass of a cup of coffee at breakfast ..

In any case, the way they behaved and orbited hardly counts as a healthy relationship.

 

Steve closes his eyes and thought of the night before they left for Sokovia.

The night they finally crossed the Rubicon.

 

It was just after the final briefing before the mission, Steve had stayed back in the meeting room to go over the mission strategy for the umpteenth time, even though he had given specific orders to each Avenger as to their roles once they breached Sokovian airspace. Of course, like all previous HYDRA base raids, Steve was well aware that even the best strategies required heavy improvisation.

The team had finally learned to work like one, as their relationships improved greatly through extended periods of time spent sparring at the gym and training together at the special simulator ground designed by Stark at the compound.

Team Movie Nights, a brainchild of Clint's, helped the most.

Despite their explosive and clashing personality, Steve and Tony’s relationship saw the biggest improvement. Of course, on Steve’s part, it was because he was halfway falling in love with their resident genius and benefactor. Steve dedicated most of his time outside missions observing Tony and learning the inventor’s body language and mood swings.

For example, beneath all his flamboyance and boisterous personality, Steve noticed that Tony had a quirk when it came to personal space. Unless he was the one initiating the contact, he would recoil at the slightest touch. Possibly an extension of his utter dislike to being handed anything, Tony once force-coughed so loudly to avoid an older woman’s embrace at a charity gala that Steve turned red trying to suppress a laugh.

Social functions were another way of Stark tearing down his walls around Steve. He was the only Avenger Tony would readily invite along, mostly because Steve was, after all a national icon. Any benefit attended by Steve Rogers in a dress uniform and Tony Stark counted as extremely successful. Besides, Steve was too  ~~polite~~ far gone to say no to Tony. 

 

Tony, did not recoil that fateful night.

“Hey Cap,” he greeted, poking his head into the meeting room much to Steve’s delight. “Still here?”

Steve lowered the file he had been re-reading for the past 5 minutes, even though his eidetic memory had recorded every word written the first time around.

“Hi Tony,” he said, hoping his smile did not betray his jumping heart. He always appreciated spending time alone with Tony, which did not come by often. He couldn’t help but look forward to these moments nonetheless as their private conversations always never, if not rarely ended up in blows.

No pun intended, much to Steve's utter dismay.

“Your little speech earlier was pretty something. Thor’s all worked up, he’s really hoping we’re right about this base.” Tony said, taking a nervous step into the room. He was sheepish tonight, Steve noticed, and it made his heart flutter even more. Tony had also changed into a loose sweater and track bottoms, a sign that he wasn’t heading to the lab or working on anything in the garage.

“If Hill’s intelligence is right on this, Strucker does have the scepter. We can’t have him creating alien weaponry with it or worse, experimenting on any more civilians for HYDRA’s gain. If it’s another bust, well, this is one less Hydra base to worry about,” Steve said, in his Captain America voice.

Tony nodded purposelessly.

Steve quickly read that Tony didn’t come by to listen to an extension of his earlier speech.

He cleared his throat.

“We wouldn’t have gone this far without you Tony. Thank you. For bringing the team together and making the missions possible.” Steve said, meeting Tony's large brown eyes. “You even gave us all a home.”

_You gave me a home._

“You hungry?” Tony asked instead, shifting the mood to a lighter tone.

“I’m always up for a good meal. You cooking?”

“God no.” Tony replied quickly. "It's irresponsible, even for me, to blow up the kitchen before we leave for Eastern Europe.

“But I do have some leftover takeout in my suite that could feed a whole village. Or a hungry supersoldier. It’s Chinese, and don’t worry there are tons of those springrolls that you love, those little dumplings that burst in your mouth, there’s the noodles you can’t pronounce…”

Steve passed him an accusing look, unable to withhold his frown. “Why did you order so much for yourself in the first place?”

Tony blinked.

“Okay you got me,” Tony resigned without a fight. “They’re not leftovers."

Steve’s eyebrows shot up.

"I _just_ had them delivered. Here. 20 minutes ago.”

Steve could feel his cheeks burning.

“Have dinner with me?” Tony asked, jogging through the words.

 

Silence.

Steve's brain went offline.

Tony Stark had just asked him to dinner. _Alone_.

“Steve?”

“Yes!” Steve blurted, louder than he intended. 

“I’d love to Tony. I’ll uh I’ll be right there. Let me get dressed first?” He said, now his turn to be sheepish, aware that he was still in the battle gear he wore for their training session that took place before the brief. 

 

Steve presses the phone against his lips, breathing out slowly. The memory was bittersweet.

Because that night changed everything between them.

 

It didn’t matter that he had scurried into the shower and hastily changed into his nicest soft button shirt and best jeans for the dinner.

Their clothes ended up strewn on the floor anyway.

He could still feel himself crowding into Tony’s personal space and lingered just above his lips, waiting for permission before whispering, “Is this okay? I don’t really want a bloodied nose if I touch you without consent.”

Tony giggled softly, bumping his nose against Steve’s.

“Let me,” Tony said, kissing the tip of Steve’s nose. “Think.” Then below Steve’s left eye. “About it.” Tony’s chastely pressed his lips against Steve’s and it quickly became open-mouthed. They kissed hungrily, devouring each other's tongues like a main course. After a while, Tony pushed at Steve's chest to communicate, breaking the kiss.

“If I knew you tasted this good I wouldn't have bothered with the takeout. You got any more moves, Rogers?”

They didn’t talk much for the rest of the night, unless 1) Tony providing encouragement out of pleasure the whole time Steve had his cock in his mouth sucking and lavishing the taste of Tony, or 2) Steve moaning Tony’s name over and over again as he rode Tony to both their orgasms, was considered a conversation. 

 

 

“I hurt him, Sam," Steve finally speaks. "I've got no right to be in his life, unless it's on his terms.”

“You didn’t come out of that bunker peachy yourself, you know,” Sam reminds.

Steve sits straight, still firmly holding the gadget. “There were two of us against him," Steve says, continuing in his head, _He didn't stand a chance_. "I slammed the shield, the shield his father made, into his reactor.” Steve shakes his head, regret swarming him cold. They’ve had this conversation before and no matter how many times Sam tells him _shit happens_ , Steve would never allow himself to believe it.

"I knew what that reactor meant to him. I used that information against him, just like how I selfishly hid the truth about his parents' death."

He was still haunted by the fear in Tony’s eyes as he fell over the bloodied man in the cold winds of Siberia.

"I didn't want to lose him. In the end I lost him all the same. I broke him." Steve whispers, his eyes warming up.

“It was a bad fight, nobody is saying it wasn’t. You did him wrong, he blew Barnes’ arm off – you do crazy things when you’re hysterical. And now you’re not. He’s safe. You’ve sent him a phone. Use your words, Steve.”

Sam pats him on the shoulder. "Think of the last time that you didn’t, and where you ended up for it.”

 

After a moment or two, once Sam had stepped inside, Steve was still fiddling the phone between his fingers.

He momentarily stops, flips the phone open and it lights up. 

**_Tony Stark_ **

The only contact saved in the device. 

He takes a deep long breathe, and presses Call.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to CACW, I can never look at a flip phone without sighing for Steve and Tony lol
> 
> title from : calum scott, leona lewis - you are the reason

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